Personal injury recovery is available to nursing home victims
Nursing home neglect and abuse is well-documented nationwide, including in Georgia. One of the biggest problems appears to be the staffing of nursing homes with unskilled workers who are underpaid and under-supervised. When a loved one in a nursing home suffers injury or death from nursing home negligence or intentional abuse, the institution may be held liable for personal injury or wrongful death damages. This is true even if the institution knows nothing about the incident; the institution’s owners are liable for the torts of their employees carried out within the scope of their job duties.
A man in another state recently made a claim against a besieged nursing home for allegedly causing the death of his 84-year-old mother due to alleged lack of care and abuse. The man claims that his mother was wheelchair bound because of severe arthritis. He claims that the staff left her for hours at a time without any care, allowing her to be covered with her own feces and urine for long periods.
As a result, the woman suffered a urinary tract infection that spread to her kidneys and killed her within days. He claims that he has been complaining to state authorities for the past year. Last month state authorities filed multiple violations against the institution, the Sapphire Nursing Home in New York. The state complaint accuses the home of neglect and understaffing. A spokesperson for the home states that it is working to correct the violations cited by the state.
Where violations are admitted by the nursing home, that is proof positive indicating negligence and neglect. If any of the violations relate to the care given to the deceased woman, the claims made by her son will be easier to prove and will make it easier to obtain a settlement from the institution. Sapphire administrators say that they are investigating the woman’s death. The negligence or abuse committed by a nursing home against a resident in Georgia makes the institution liable for personal injury damages to the injured resident. In the event of death, the recovery would be measured in terms of wrongful death damages.
Source: hudsonvalley.news12.com, “Grieving son accuses Goshen nursing home of abuse, neglect“, March 13, 2018